SLIM Scholar & Intern Program 2007-08:

Christian Golcher

When I was in school I learned that agriculture was at the root of human race evolution and diversified civilizations. Studying showed me how governments, arts, education, economics and culture developed through thousands years; changing from time to time, from one place to another. Now as I finish my third year of agriculture and natural resources management post secondary education, and that I have had some more experience in this little world, I better understand how agriculture is and always is going to be crucial for the development of human kind. I come from Costa Rica, where natural resources conservation is very important and wellbeing has been deeply marked by one century of the Latin American social democratic system. Today we are in an accelerated process of economical liberation. Seen in this context, I am looking forward to developing and applying sustainable technologies in my country namely (but not limited to) the fields of organic agriculture, permaculture, biodynamics etc. These practices have always existed in Costa Rica, but as the rest of the world’s scenario… we need to take back what we once knew. I apply this to my philosophy with every-day self knowledge of who I have always been and what has marked my personal life. Simplicity…

Rebeca Salazar

Rebeca Salazar at Kapalua Farm’s Organic Pineapple

I have had the rare privilege of being born in one of the most richly diverse countries in the world. Costa Rica, with only 51 100 km2, has close to 5% of the world’s bio-diversity! It’s probably because of this that I have always appreciated nature and have a great respect for natural environments. When it was time to decide what I would do for the rest of my life I wanted to do something productive, helpful to my surroundings and that would allow me to enjoy life and work. When I finished high school, EARTH University, a well known international agricultural university located at Limon, Costa Rica, seemed like the right place to go. I have spent the last three years learning about agriculture and sustainable living practices that could be applied from agriculture to hotel and urban development. Two months ago I arrived at Kahului, Maui ready to have a life changing experience. I had the amazing opportunity to do an internship at Kapalua Farms in collaboration of Maui Land and Pineapple Co., Sustainable Living Institute of Maui and EARTH University. For the past few weeks, I have been working on specific projects to help increase the farms’ productivity. One of them is by defining a protocols to effectively monitor and control ants on pineapple and other smaller crops like eggplant, daikon and okra. Ants are known to have symbiotic relationships with pests such as mealy bugs and aphids. By controlling ants, these pests will be more vulnerable to native predators such as lady bugs. We are currently testing methods to reduce population of ants. I am also looking forward to the possibility of using plants such as coreposis, fennel, angelica and other species known to attract lady bugs. Other projects I am involved with include a root growth enhancing project for organic pineapple in which we will be treating seeds with different solutions and later comparing results on root growth and plant weight. I have initiated a pineapple variety collection which currently has 16 ornamental varieties. We are looking forward to increasing our varieties and introduce some edible fruit too! In December I will return to Costa Rica to finish my last year of college. Hopefully in the future I will find other opportunities to travel to new places to learn and apply sustainable living practices, influencing communities around the world.

EARTH University Intern at Haleakala (Christian Golcher, Andrea Barquin, Rebeca Salazar)

Maria Andrea Barquín

Maria Andrea and her vermi-bin

Once you find what really inspires you, all you have to do is follow it. For me it was very hard to find out what I wanted to become when I grew up; doctor, lawyer, engineer, architect, physician, scientist…. there are so many options!! When you grow up in a small country in Central America, so rich in culture and nature, and you realize how the rest of the world is developing so fast and how globalization and its economical interests are slowly taking away all of our respect for nature, love for each other, tolerance, harmony living, spiritual development…… you suddenly realize that you have to chose an integral way of living. I chose the sustainable way of living. That is basically how I ended up studying agriculture and natural resources management in Costa Rica. It was not easy to leave my country, family and friends behind to follow that dream, but it was the best decision I have made in my life. I grew up in Guatemala City, and for the past 3 years I have been living in the humid tropics of Costa Rica. It has been a whole new experience for me because I decided to radically change my life style. There are still so many things I want to learn, do and become outside of agriculture but meanwhile I feel very happy I changed my urban life style to learn and become an organic farmer. I came to Maui as part of an internship program between Maui Community College, EARTH University and Kapalua Farms. This is my 10th week here and I feel very lucky to be in a place like this. I have been working on two specific projects; Vermicomposting and Added Value. Both have been a completely new experience for me and I have learned a lot through them during this time. I have to leave Maui in December to spend the holidays with my family and hopefully next year I will be graduating from EARTH University with the title of Agronomic Engineer.

SLIM Scholar & Intern Program 2005-06:

In efforts to develop a pool of “SLIM scholars” that can share knowledge about sustainability, SLIM provided a six-month research fellowship of $9,000 to Kyung-Nan Koh, Ph.D. candidate of cultural anthropology at the University of Pennsylvania. Ms. Koh conducted research in to the corporate social responsibility efforts at Maui Land & Pineapple Company, Inc. In addition to the dissemination of scholarly knowledge regarding ongoing sustainability efforts underway on Maui, the Steering Committee expects Ms. Koh’s dissertation to benefit SLIM and the larger sustainable community with insights into how social and human factors influence dynamic cultural-economic trends.

 

Also in an effort to further develop “SLIM scholars” network, SLIM funded inter-island travel costs for a University of Southern California MBA student serving as fellow at UH Hilo Pacific Aquaculture and Coastal Resource Center, Jeremy Kwock. This funding resulted in educational opportunities in the form of workshop presentation on the important topic of agriculture, aquaculture, and business. Additionally, the Steering Committee agreed to fund two UH-MCC student internships per semester, providing Maui-based undergraduate students involved in sustainable agriculture and/or technologies a chance to work alongside SLIM Scholars addressing a specific research question with a Maui focus.

 

A SLIM intern to Earth University in 2005, Joshua Irvine of UH Mānoa College of Tropical Agriculture and Human Resources, gave presentations to agriculture students of UH-MCC and Maui high schools. The intern shared his first-hand experiences at Costa Rica, with goals to disseminate knowledge and recruit student interests to SLIM internship.

 

 

To build upon existing resources and to find ways of linking private sector partnerships and the S&I Program, SLIM participated in Maui Land & Pineapple Company, Inc.’s (ML&P) Hāli`imaile Community Garden Potluck event. This identified high school students interested in furthering their agricultural focus and will serve as a basis for future intern recruitment.

 

Through SLIM funding, Maui Ag Partners (MAP) of ML&P was able to double the number of high school students involved in sustainable agriculture internships in 2006. As in past years, MAP incorporated five Lahainaluna students into operations for five weeks in the summer. In addition to field work such as planting orchard trees in the organic farm, interns participated in field based lessons on several topics including composting, soil science, and entrepreneurship.

 

For the first time, MAP held an Up Country five-week internship at Hali`imaile Community Garden (HCG). Five students worked with our UH intern to establish the garden for future use by the community. This program included hands on learning, in-field lessons, field trips and discussion about entrepreneurship in agriculture. One student discovered he enjoys agriculture so much that he has since started an elaborate garden and compost pile at home. The HCG internship generated sufficient interest that over the winter break, MAP is hosting an additional five students, all from Kamehameha Schools for a 40-hour unpaid internship. These internship programs will serve as the basis for refining a model for high school students to move into agricultural-based entrepreneurship.